About Fatemeh Khalkhal
At SF State Since:
Bio:
Dr. Khalkhal is an associate professor in the Mechanical Engineering department at SFSU. She has a BSc and MSc in Chemical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology (Tehran, Iran) and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal (Quebec, Canada, 2012) and has served as a postdoc fellow at Yale University (2012-2013) and UC Berkeley (2014-2016). Her research interest is in extending the understanding of the physics of soft matter and the development of the structure-property relationship in complex fluids. Such studies are critical in designing multi-functional materials and flow processes with biomedical, aerospace, and energy applications. She has developed several techniques to design more fuel-efficient lubricants for car engines and composites for the transportation industry. Furthermore, she has experience designing and optimizing microfluidic devices for diagnostics and has studied flow instabilities in many industrial applications. She has also worked for Schlumberger Ltd. (2000-2005), providing consulting services to oil companies to re-engineer their economic evaluation system, portfolio management, and risk analysis.
Other areas of research interest: engineering education, engineering identity, broadening participation, rheology, flow visualization, particle image velocimetry, microscopy, microfabrication, and computational modeling.
Current funding:
1) Strengthening Pathways to Success in STEM (SP2S), Title V US Department of Education ($232,864, 2018-2023, role: Co-PI).
2) Strengthening Student Motivation and Resilience through Research and Advising (NSF-HSI iUSE, $1.0 million, 2021-2024, role: Co-PI).
3) Understanding Teamwork Experience and its Linkage to Engineering Identity of Diverse Students (NSF RIEF EEC: $199,919.0; 2021-2023, role: Co-PI).